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Police fine pedestrian for disorderly behaviour after he tried to cover his face

283 points by mlmartin 7y ago

shawabawa3 7y ago
Slight correction: It seems he wasn't exactly fined for hiding his face. Police asked him to uncover his face and he told them to "piss off", for which he was fined.
- anbop 7y ago
  That’s actually worse.
  - gjm11 7y ago
    I don't think it is. Scenario 1: You get fined if you refuse to expose your face. Scenario 2: You get fined if you refuse to expose your face, and are rude about it. I don't see how scenario 2 is worse than scenario 1: it seems obviously less bad. Now, maybe in fact it's Scenario 1: You get fined if you refuse to expose your face. Scenario 3: You get fined if you're rude to the police. This comparison is more debatable, but I still prefer 3 to 1, because not exposing your face is a thing that has (so to speak) possible functional uses, so if you can't do it then you've lost something that could actually be useful to you, whereas being rude to the police -- which, for the avoidance of doubt, I do think people should be free to do -- isn't really something anyone has a particular need to do. Again, I can understand why someone might prefer 1 to 3. But if my civil liberties are going to be gratuitously eroded, I'd prefer to lose ones whose value is only symbolic.
- bArray 7y ago
  You'll find in the UK that it's quite common practice to use the vagueness in the law to pin a different charge on somebody. Being rude to a police officer isn't a chargeable offense, yet it'll be treated as such. The police have no requirement or training available to actually understand the nuances of the law, nor are they updated when the law changes. The British police is mostly under-trained and under-funded, especially as you break out of the London bubble. One of the major issues with UK law is it's vagueness and openness to interpretation, which is all of course by design. You don't tend to notice erosion until the ground beneath you collapses.
  - marme 7y ago
    In the US you would just get charged with resisting arrest. This is what happens when they ask for your ID and you refuse to give it to them. You wont be convicted but the fact that you can be arrested for resisting arrest without committing any crime is a problem
- lucb1e 7y ago
  Wait, that's not a slight correction, that's a whole different thing. So nobody was fined for covering their face, but when they swore at cops they got a fine for that? That's quite a distinction. That's the difference between being fined for speaking ill of Budha/Allah/God or for swearing at the police man who asked you to voluntarily not do that.
vixen99 7y ago
For those who prefer not to go to the Daily Mail directly: "Camera cross-checked photos of faces of passers-by against wanted database. One man covered face before officers stopped him and took his picture anyway. He was fined £90 at scene in Romford by police who arrested three other people Police say they know of human rights concerns but want to make London safer"
- dominicr 7y ago
  https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/facial-recognition-cameras-technology-london-trial-met-police-face-cover-man-fined-a8756936.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/facial-recogniti... (Adding a link to a news source from the other side of the aisle to the Mail.)
  - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
    Less other side of the aisle than the Mail being an issue for having a long, long history of inaccurate and plain made up "reporting".
- onetimemanytime 7y ago
  >>Police say they know of human rights concerns but want to make London safer" Alrighty then, just wanted to make sure that they know of human rights concerns.
- simonh 7y ago
  >..but want to make London safer. It would be nice to be safer from police harassment.
  - TomK32 7y ago
    That old Sinéad O'Connor is still ringing true https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n14lwdpYkAA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n14lwdpYkAA
  - sanbor 7y ago
    > ..but want to make London safer. By the police stopping you, taking your picture, and trying to match your face to a list of criminals with 96% of false positive match rate.
Angostura 7y ago
From the Independent coverage: > The force had put out a statement saying “anyone who declines to be scanned will not necessarily be viewed as suspicious”. However, witnesses said several people were stopped after covering their faces or pulling up hoods. > “The guy told them to p* off and then they gave him the £90 public order fine for swearing,” Ms Carlo added. “He was really angry.” I live close to Romford, and I'm quite tempted to wander past with my face obscured and then politely decline if asked to be photographed. Of course, I'm white, middle class and middle aged, so I probably wont be stopped.
- NullPrefix 7y ago
  Man in the news photos didn't look that dark either.
- dazc 7y ago
  “The guy told them to p* off and then they gave him the £90 public order fine for swearing,” Ms Carlo added. “He was really angry.” Accepting such a fine is voluntary, he could go to court and defend himself instead. I'd be surprised if some organisation or another didn't offer to pay his costs?
  - mywittyname 7y ago
    If he gets off, it will absolutely be the result of the publicity around this case. Courts will uphold these rules if imposed on normal people.
    - dazc 7y ago
      I am not so sure he did anything illegal? Courts in the UK are fairly independent of public opinion.
- petercooper 7y ago
  “The guy told them to p off and then they gave him the £90 public order fine for swearing,”* This is a common use of laws in the United Kingdom. They put lots of laws on the books around trivial things that they almost never enforce on their own, but then which officers arbitrarily use in "convenient" situations like this. The average person swearing in the street will not be accosted, someone arguing with a cop who wants to make a point will.
ChuckNorris89 7y ago
How do they enforce this on people wearing hijabs or other religios clothing that covers the face?
- sundvor 7y ago
  Or Respro masks. Legitimate use cases for those, London has.
- x38iq84n 7y ago
  They don't, that would be raycis.
  - justanegg 7y ago
    am i shadowbanned?
- ptah 7y ago
  they would ask them for identification just like they did with this guy
  - cjrp 7y ago
    Of every person wearing a headscarf or veil? And every cyclist wearing a filter mask?
    - ptah 7y ago
      not sure, i'm not a policeman that is involved with these pilots. i am sure they are still developing policy around it
  - kypro 7y ago
    What identification exactly? You don't have to own a passport or a drivers license in the UK, nor do we have ID cards.
    - ptah 7y ago
StavrosK 7y ago
> The force had put out a statement saying “anyone who declines to be scanned will not necessarily be viewed as suspicious”. That's why it's called "erosion of rights" and not "outright nullification of rights". Unfortunately, it works, and it's entirely unsurprising that face surveillance will become normalized.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  There's a reason they're doing it in London first. In a wealthy city like London you can get away with going full "law and order" because the ratio of rich to poor is better (i.e more rich people) and the rich generally view this as no threat to them. Then once it's normalized they roll it out to Liverpool, Belfast and everywhere else that the poors are less under the thumb of the government. You see this in the US. Boston, DC, New York, etc are littered with surveillance cameras and ALPRs. Once it's normalized they'll roll it out to places like New Bedford, Norlfolk and Buffalo and all the other places where the government (as an organization, not as individuals) feels its respected less.
  - foldr 7y ago
    Romford is on the outskirts of London and is not especially wealthy.
    - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
      Exactly. You don't implement your Baghdad style checkpoints in Manhattan. You do it in the Bronx. The rich (the people who's non-disapproval you need) get told by the official statements (that the newspaper regurgitates) how it's the best thing since sliced bread while not actually being negatively affected by it themselves. The fact that you've got a bunch of rich people who never see the downside of each step toward the police state and don't come out strongly against it lends legitimacy to each step.
      - sverige 7y ago
        Your assumption is that the government is not controlled by the very wealthy already, so that their disapproval of the very thing they are engineering is possible. It's not designed to target them. It's for their benefit. There's no downside for the wealthy with this tech, it's all upside since it gives them greater control.
cbovis 7y ago
Very interested to understand what sort of metadata is being stored from these cameras. It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if the cameras are being used to build a database of individual’s movements, whether deliberate or as a side effect of logging. Any more information on this from a better source than the DM?
- cbovis 7y ago
  Did a little more digging around this and discovered https://www.met.police.uk/live-facial-recognition-trial/ https://www.met.police.uk/live-facial-recognition-trial/ through Reddit. “Live Facial Recognition uses NEC’s NeoFace technology to analyse images of the faces of people on the watch list. It measures the structure of each face, including distance between eyes, nose, mouth and jaw to create facial data. The system detects a face, creates a digital version of it and searches it against the watch list; where it makes a match it sends an alert to an officer on the scene. The officer compares the camera image and the watch list image and decides whether to stop and speak to the person. We always explain why we’ve stopped someone; we also give them a leaflet that explains how they can contact us to ask any questions afterwards. The system will only keep faces matching the watch list, these are kept for 30 days, all others are deleted immediately. We delete all other data on the watch list and the footage we record.”
telesilla 7y ago
In a science fiction world, those of us who cared about privacy would start wearing make-up (until it was banned): https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/07/makeup/374929/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/07/makeu... We don't do this en masse now because "The very thing that makes you invisible to computers makes you glaringly obvious to other humans"
- wnkrshm 7y ago
  I wonder, what about methods that do not obstruct human vision but do obstruct the camera? Like a faceshield, transparent mask or bag that you can wear (like a transparent raincoat hood) but one that has scattering features for near IR light that will hide your face to cameras. Or laser dazzlers that look for lenses. Both will probably be quickly banned as criminal tools (like 'hacking tools' are in some nations). You could also project time-dependent illumination patterns on your own face, throwing off algorithms.
  - telesilla 7y ago
    I think we need temporary tattoos: they should dissolve over a few days, so you can new ones and avoid re-detection, but not be able to be "taken off" by police wishing to scan you. Something that is worn would be considered as disobedience, like the shirt the man in the article pulled over this face. We just need one of the Kardashians to make it fashionable and then it's all over for face detection.
TomK32 7y ago
How good is this software if you just close one eye and make a grimace while walking by?
teekert 7y ago
Show your face, slave!
upofadown 7y ago
We haven't really even come to terms with the false positive rate associated with just looking at people. When law enforcement wants to check ID all they have to do is say they thought you looked like someone. The high rate of false positives is a feature not a bug. You could set up an empty box with a lens drawn on it with a motion detector aimed to go off 4% of the time and the result would be almost as useful to law enforcement as a facial detection system that actual did something. The facial detection just increases the efficiency of the "papers please" checkpoint.
coldcode 7y ago
1984 was not intended to be a how-to manual.
moron4hire 7y ago
>> After being pulled aside, the man told police: 'If I want to cover me face, I'll cover me face. Don't push me over when I'm walking down the street.' Jesus, it's a good thing cops in London don't have guns. Can't imagine how this would have ended in one of the whitebread suburbs here in the US with our 'roided-out school-yard-bullies-turned-pro.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
neiman 7y ago
... and now his face is all over hackernews. Great.
sudoaza 7y ago
Police state intensifies
bredren 7y ago
I regularly see people going around with their faces covered in Portland. For example, guy in dark clothes on a bmx bike riding down east bank esplanade. I assume that these folks have warrants. But I am not aware of any deployed facial recognition in Portland.
- tasty_freeze 7y ago
  If they are doing it for that reason, that seems like a bad choice. That would stand out even more obviously than had they worn a T-shirt that said "The police are looking for me".
  - bredren 7y ago
    I thought the same but you still see it all the time.
Zenst 7y ago
I wonder if you could copyright your face and then use the law against the law. DMCA takedowns etc etc.
- CharlesColeman 7y ago
  > use the law against the law You can only do that if the lawmakers agree.
  - Zenst 7y ago
    They already agreed lots of copyright laws and the like, be kinda ironic to use those laws for civil justice.
- pbhjpbhj 7y ago
  It's not an artistic work, and there are broad rights to images in public that preclude you from making a work on your face to prevent imaging of it. It's a nice idea but it would allow lots of law breaking of things worked that way. Eg paint something on your car, now police can't capture you on speed camera!!11one.
  - Zenst 7y ago
    Yes sadly that is the crux. Whilst the people do have concerns, those concerns are shared for nefarious reasons by your criminally inclined. Way things are going, how long until we have camera technology as CCTV that is comparable to Holywood camera's - certainly the standard today is up there with 80's offering. Might even come a time when you can do a film in places like London without needing any cameras as you can just ab-use the data protection act to get copies of any footage your in and get all the camera angles and video you need to edit into a film. Kinda doable now, though not all cameras are 4k and well light area's. But certainly doable. One interesting legal aspect about CCTV in the UK - the only camera's that are allowed to record audio are the ones located outside police stations. Which is reassuring as with mic-arrays - intrusion into privacy and indeed voice recognition would be far greater than any CCTV/facial recognition. But that is one to watch and keep an eye upon as I'm sure that will change/erode over time.
bArray 7y ago
This makes me very sad for many reasons: * People are losing their freedom of privacy in the name of safety and most accept it. Many are likely unaware at this stage of the trade-off. * One activist was in presence by happen chance, otherwise this likely would have gone unreported. * The database _currently_ only keeps peoples data for 30 days. When the UK leaves the EU, this will likely be extended. China has already experienced multiple data breaches. * It's unclear what data is kept and deleted, I suspect that metadata may be retained indefinitely. * The money being spent on these systems could be spent getting more officers on the ground. I have no doubt they are sinking millions of pounds into this project. * The police initially started testing this system illegally, there were no repercussions. * The majority of people being arrested as a result of this technology are probably not the worst people in society. I believe this will be used to disproportionately target poorer people and petty crimes. * Telling an officer to "fuck off" or "piss off" is not a crime. It's not an offense to be rude and you certainly shouldn't have to "Wind your neck in" in fear of a public servant.
- wlkr 7y ago
  > Telling an officer to "fuck off" or "piss off" is not a crime. This is largely true but > It's not an offense to be rude is rightly or wrongly a very broad grey area. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_5_Public_Order_Act_1986 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_5_Public_Order_Act_198...
  - pbhjpbhj 7y ago
    Also, if you're aggressive IIRC then it can be considered to be threatening.
    - whenchamenia 7y ago
      I am told my stature alone is 'threatening' and 'agressive'. My freedon to express myself without fear of imprisonment is affected in many situations. I find this verbage frightening when written in law without very clear and unambigious definitions.
- 7y ago
YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago
Is there another source for this? I don't even want to visit the Mail's website, let alone read whatever misrepresentation of what actually transpired that they have put down in their article.
- pbhjpbhj 7y ago
  See my comment, it was on BBC Click a few days ago.
- richrichardsson 7y ago
  As someone also not interested in giving the Daily Fail/Heil any traffic what-so-ever, I found this : https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/facial-recognition-cameras-technology-london-trial-met-police-face-cover-man-fined-a8756936.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/facial-recogniti...
  - YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago
    Cheers.
- benj111 7y ago
  I always find I slightly unsettling when the Mail gets frothy mouthed about the same things as Hacker News. Don't want to get stuck in that news bubble though....
- Wildgoose 7y ago
  It includes video and is also available on the Daily Mirror website.
pbhjpbhj 7y ago
This was on BBC Click, which is on YouTube (for me, I'm in UK though). A good programme overall. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KqFyBpcbH9A https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KqFyBpcbH9A They give stats and details. It may not be the same incident as the OP, but it sounds broadly similar and the programme fleshes out the general situation well. Edit: Actually it is the same guy. The issue and provision of the fine, etc., it's on the show.
pif 7y ago
I personally don't see any issue with this. If you want absolute privacy, than stay at home. If you want absolute freedom, than go live somewhere where nobody else lives. Society runs on compromises: your freedon to swing your fist ends where my nose begins (and viceversa); your privacy ends where my safety is concerned (and viceversa).
- seieste 7y ago
  What’s your full name, phone number, and street address? If you want privacy, then don’t post online.
  - wallace_f 7y ago
    He doesn't even have an Online Commenting License. A hefty fine under the Against Hate Speech Act of 2022.
- WilliamEdward 7y ago
  To add to this, there hasn't been any expectation of privacy beyond a reasonable amount out in public, in most places, for the longest time. Whether you think this is morally correct or not, it has been the norm for quite some time so this can't suddenly be surprising.
- Zak 7y ago
  Even if I accept your premise that privacy from facial recognition in public is to your safety as swinging my fist at your nose is to your right to not be assaulted (I don't), I don't think the police in the UK have done a good job justifying the benefits of using facial recognition this way. How much safety benefit does it actually produce?
  - pif 7y ago
    The main point for me is that policemen made it really clear that, once public procedures and policies have been defined by a legitimate government, unless those policies infringe internationally recognized human rights, it's not up to the single citizen to challenge them! If you don't agree with them, democracies give you the means to start a public discussion. But, in the meanwhile, you comply. That is civilization! Do you know that idiocy of sovereign citizens? Well, London police demontrated that none of that bullshit will be tolerated. And, while I personally dislike being continuosly filmed, I think that London police has just made London a better place to live. London city is not the wild west.
stunt 7y ago
Well said that we are the last free generation. It so weird how much of our freedom and privacy we are giving away. People used to fight for these stuff. And then you would think how far this can go in near future if this is just the beginning. After all, all these fear and mixed feelings about security and conflicts are caused by a long chain of reactions and consequences of bad decisions governments are making themselves around the world. And it is sad that normal people end up losing their privacy more than responsible ones do. It requires a fundamental strategy change that is not going to happen in reality. I wonder what kind of destructive side effects it will have for the future generations specially to the culture.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
marcod 7y ago
Another report https://metro.co.uk/2019/05/16/moment-man-fined-90-hiding-face-police-facial-recognition-cameras-9571463/ https://metro.co.uk/2019/05/16/moment-man-fined-90-hiding-fa... It's a little bit like saying "If she doesn't want to be tossed into the water she must be a witch!"
maxhedrome 7y ago
Might was well change their name to Meh Britain

283 points by mlmartin 7y ago

Slight correction: It seems he wasn't exactly fined for hiding his face. Police asked him to uncover his face and he told them to "piss off", for which he was fined.

anbop 7y ago
That’s actually worse.
- gjm11 7y ago
  I don't think it is. Scenario 1: You get fined if you refuse to expose your face. Scenario 2: You get fined if you refuse to expose your face, and are rude about it. I don't see how scenario 2 is worse than scenario 1: it seems obviously less bad. Now, maybe in fact it's Scenario 1: You get fined if you refuse to expose your face. Scenario 3: You get fined if you're rude to the police. This comparison is more debatable, but I still prefer 3 to 1, because not exposing your face is a thing that has (so to speak) possible functional uses, so if you can't do it then you've lost something that could actually be useful to you, whereas being rude to the police -- which, for the avoidance of doubt, I do think people should be free to do -- isn't really something anyone has a particular need to do. Again, I can understand why someone might prefer 1 to 3. But if my civil liberties are going to be gratuitously eroded, I'd prefer to lose ones whose value is only symbolic.
bArray 7y ago
You'll find in the UK that it's quite common practice to use the vagueness in the law to pin a different charge on somebody. Being rude to a police officer isn't a chargeable offense, yet it'll be treated as such. The police have no requirement or training available to actually understand the nuances of the law, nor are they updated when the law changes. The British police is mostly under-trained and under-funded, especially as you break out of the London bubble. One of the major issues with UK law is it's vagueness and openness to interpretation, which is all of course by design. You don't tend to notice erosion until the ground beneath you collapses.
- marme 7y ago
  In the US you would just get charged with resisting arrest. This is what happens when they ask for your ID and you refuse to give it to them. You wont be convicted but the fact that you can be arrested for resisting arrest without committing any crime is a problem
lucb1e 7y ago
Wait, that's not a slight correction, that's a whole different thing. So nobody was fined for covering their face, but when they swore at cops they got a fine for that? That's quite a distinction. That's the difference between being fined for speaking ill of Budha/Allah/God or for swearing at the police man who asked you to voluntarily not do that.

vixen99 7y ago

For those who prefer not to go to the Daily Mail directly: "Camera cross-checked photos of faces of passers-by against wanted database. One man covered face before officers stopped him and took his picture anyway. He was fined £90 at scene in Romford by police who arrested three other people Police say they know of human rights concerns but want to make London safer"

dominicr 7y ago
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/facial-recognition-cameras-technology-london-trial-met-police-face-cover-man-fined-a8756936.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/facial-recogniti... (Adding a link to a news source from the other side of the aisle to the Mail.)
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  Less other side of the aisle than the Mail being an issue for having a long, long history of inaccurate and plain made up "reporting".
onetimemanytime 7y ago
>>Police say they know of human rights concerns but want to make London safer" Alrighty then, just wanted to make sure that they know of human rights concerns.
simonh 7y ago
>..but want to make London safer. It would be nice to be safer from police harassment.
- TomK32 7y ago
  That old Sinéad O'Connor is still ringing true https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n14lwdpYkAA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n14lwdpYkAA
- sanbor 7y ago
  > ..but want to make London safer. By the police stopping you, taking your picture, and trying to match your face to a list of criminals with 96% of false positive match rate.

Angostura 7y ago

From the Independent coverage: > The force had put out a statement saying “anyone who declines to be scanned will not necessarily be viewed as suspicious”. However, witnesses said several people were stopped after covering their faces or pulling up hoods. > “The guy told them to p* off and then they gave him the £90 public order fine for swearing,” Ms Carlo added. “He was really angry.” I live close to Romford, and I'm quite tempted to wander past with my face obscured and then politely decline if asked to be photographed. Of course, I'm white, middle class and middle aged, so I probably wont be stopped.

NullPrefix 7y ago
Man in the news photos didn't look that dark either.
dazc 7y ago
“The guy told them to p* off and then they gave him the £90 public order fine for swearing,” Ms Carlo added. “He was really angry.” Accepting such a fine is voluntary, he could go to court and defend himself instead. I'd be surprised if some organisation or another didn't offer to pay his costs?
- mywittyname 7y ago
  If he gets off, it will absolutely be the result of the publicity around this case. Courts will uphold these rules if imposed on normal people.
  - dazc 7y ago
    I am not so sure he did anything illegal? Courts in the UK are fairly independent of public opinion.
petercooper 7y ago
“The guy told them to p off and then they gave him the £90 public order fine for swearing,”* This is a common use of laws in the United Kingdom. They put lots of laws on the books around trivial things that they almost never enforce on their own, but then which officers arbitrarily use in "convenient" situations like this. The average person swearing in the street will not be accosted, someone arguing with a cop who wants to make a point will.

ChuckNorris89 7y ago

How do they enforce this on people wearing hijabs or other religios clothing that covers the face?

sundvor 7y ago
Or Respro masks. Legitimate use cases for those, London has.
x38iq84n 7y ago
They don't, that would be raycis.
- justanegg 7y ago
  am i shadowbanned?
ptah 7y ago
they would ask them for identification just like they did with this guy
- cjrp 7y ago
  Of every person wearing a headscarf or veil? And every cyclist wearing a filter mask?
  - ptah 7y ago
    not sure, i'm not a policeman that is involved with these pilots. i am sure they are still developing policy around it
- kypro 7y ago
  What identification exactly? You don't have to own a passport or a drivers license in the UK, nor do we have ID cards.
  - ptah 7y ago

StavrosK 7y ago

> The force had put out a statement saying “anyone who declines to be scanned will not necessarily be viewed as suspicious”. That's why it's called "erosion of rights" and not "outright nullification of rights". Unfortunately, it works, and it's entirely unsurprising that face surveillance will become normalized.

dsfyu404ed 7y ago
There's a reason they're doing it in London first. In a wealthy city like London you can get away with going full "law and order" because the ratio of rich to poor is better (i.e more rich people) and the rich generally view this as no threat to them. Then once it's normalized they roll it out to Liverpool, Belfast and everywhere else that the poors are less under the thumb of the government. You see this in the US. Boston, DC, New York, etc are littered with surveillance cameras and ALPRs. Once it's normalized they'll roll it out to places like New Bedford, Norlfolk and Buffalo and all the other places where the government (as an organization, not as individuals) feels its respected less.
- foldr 7y ago
  Romford is on the outskirts of London and is not especially wealthy.
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    Exactly. You don't implement your Baghdad style checkpoints in Manhattan. You do it in the Bronx. The rich (the people who's non-disapproval you need) get told by the official statements (that the newspaper regurgitates) how it's the best thing since sliced bread while not actually being negatively affected by it themselves. The fact that you've got a bunch of rich people who never see the downside of each step toward the police state and don't come out strongly against it lends legitimacy to each step.
    - sverige 7y ago
      Your assumption is that the government is not controlled by the very wealthy already, so that their disapproval of the very thing they are engineering is possible. It's not designed to target them. It's for their benefit. There's no downside for the wealthy with this tech, it's all upside since it gives them greater control.

cbovis 7y ago

Very interested to understand what sort of metadata is being stored from these cameras. It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if the cameras are being used to build a database of individual’s movements, whether deliberate or as a side effect of logging. Any more information on this from a better source than the DM?

cbovis 7y ago
Did a little more digging around this and discovered https://www.met.police.uk/live-facial-recognition-trial/ https://www.met.police.uk/live-facial-recognition-trial/ through Reddit. “Live Facial Recognition uses NEC’s NeoFace technology to analyse images of the faces of people on the watch list. It measures the structure of each face, including distance between eyes, nose, mouth and jaw to create facial data. The system detects a face, creates a digital version of it and searches it against the watch list; where it makes a match it sends an alert to an officer on the scene. The officer compares the camera image and the watch list image and decides whether to stop and speak to the person. We always explain why we’ve stopped someone; we also give them a leaflet that explains how they can contact us to ask any questions afterwards. The system will only keep faces matching the watch list, these are kept for 30 days, all others are deleted immediately. We delete all other data on the watch list and the footage we record.”

telesilla 7y ago

In a science fiction world, those of us who cared about privacy would start wearing make-up (until it was banned): https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/07/makeup/374929/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/07/makeu... We don't do this en masse now because "The very thing that makes you invisible to computers makes you glaringly obvious to other humans"

wnkrshm 7y ago
I wonder, what about methods that do not obstruct human vision but do obstruct the camera? Like a faceshield, transparent mask or bag that you can wear (like a transparent raincoat hood) but one that has scattering features for near IR light that will hide your face to cameras. Or laser dazzlers that look for lenses. Both will probably be quickly banned as criminal tools (like 'hacking tools' are in some nations). You could also project time-dependent illumination patterns on your own face, throwing off algorithms.
- telesilla 7y ago
  I think we need temporary tattoos: they should dissolve over a few days, so you can new ones and avoid re-detection, but not be able to be "taken off" by police wishing to scan you. Something that is worn would be considered as disobedience, like the shirt the man in the article pulled over this face. We just need one of the Kardashians to make it fashionable and then it's all over for face detection.

TomK32 7y ago

How good is this software if you just close one eye and make a grimace while walking by?

teekert 7y ago

Show your face, slave!

upofadown 7y ago

We haven't really even come to terms with the false positive rate associated with just looking at people. When law enforcement wants to check ID all they have to do is say they thought you looked like someone. The high rate of false positives is a feature not a bug. You could set up an empty box with a lens drawn on it with a motion detector aimed to go off 4% of the time and the result would be almost as useful to law enforcement as a facial detection system that actual did something. The facial detection just increases the efficiency of the "papers please" checkpoint.

coldcode 7y ago

1984 was not intended to be a how-to manual.

moron4hire 7y ago

>> After being pulled aside, the man told police: 'If I want to cover me face, I'll cover me face. Don't push me over when I'm walking down the street.' Jesus, it's a good thing cops in London don't have guns. Can't imagine how this would have ended in one of the whitebread suburbs here in the US with our 'roided-out school-yard-bullies-turned-pro.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

neiman 7y ago

... and now his face is all over hackernews. Great.

sudoaza 7y ago

Police state intensifies

bredren 7y ago

I regularly see people going around with their faces covered in Portland. For example, guy in dark clothes on a bmx bike riding down east bank esplanade. I assume that these folks have warrants. But I am not aware of any deployed facial recognition in Portland.

tasty_freeze 7y ago
If they are doing it for that reason, that seems like a bad choice. That would stand out even more obviously than had they worn a T-shirt that said "The police are looking for me".
- bredren 7y ago
  I thought the same but you still see it all the time.

Zenst 7y ago

I wonder if you could copyright your face and then use the law against the law. DMCA takedowns etc etc.

CharlesColeman 7y ago
> use the law against the law You can only do that if the lawmakers agree.
- Zenst 7y ago
  They already agreed lots of copyright laws and the like, be kinda ironic to use those laws for civil justice.
pbhjpbhj 7y ago
It's not an artistic work, and there are broad rights to images in public that preclude you from making a work on your face to prevent imaging of it. It's a nice idea but it would allow lots of law breaking of things worked that way. Eg paint something on your car, now police can't capture you on speed camera!!11one.
- Zenst 7y ago
  Yes sadly that is the crux. Whilst the people do have concerns, those concerns are shared for nefarious reasons by your criminally inclined. Way things are going, how long until we have camera technology as CCTV that is comparable to Holywood camera's - certainly the standard today is up there with 80's offering. Might even come a time when you can do a film in places like London without needing any cameras as you can just ab-use the data protection act to get copies of any footage your in and get all the camera angles and video you need to edit into a film. Kinda doable now, though not all cameras are 4k and well light area's. But certainly doable. One interesting legal aspect about CCTV in the UK - the only camera's that are allowed to record audio are the ones located outside police stations. Which is reassuring as with mic-arrays - intrusion into privacy and indeed voice recognition would be far greater than any CCTV/facial recognition. But that is one to watch and keep an eye upon as I'm sure that will change/erode over time.

bArray 7y ago

This makes me very sad for many reasons: * People are losing their freedom of privacy in the name of safety and most accept it. Many are likely unaware at this stage of the trade-off. * One activist was in presence by happen chance, otherwise this likely would have gone unreported. * The database _currently_ only keeps peoples data for 30 days. When the UK leaves the EU, this will likely be extended. China has already experienced multiple data breaches. * It's unclear what data is kept and deleted, I suspect that metadata may be retained indefinitely. * The money being spent on these systems could be spent getting more officers on the ground. I have no doubt they are sinking millions of pounds into this project. * The police initially started testing this system illegally, there were no repercussions. * The majority of people being arrested as a result of this technology are probably not the worst people in society. I believe this will be used to disproportionately target poorer people and petty crimes. * Telling an officer to "fuck off" or "piss off" is not a crime. It's not an offense to be rude and you certainly shouldn't have to "Wind your neck in" in fear of a public servant.

wlkr 7y ago
> Telling an officer to "fuck off" or "piss off" is not a crime. This is largely true but > It's not an offense to be rude is rightly or wrongly a very broad grey area. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_5_Public_Order_Act_1986 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_5_Public_Order_Act_198...
- pbhjpbhj 7y ago
  Also, if you're aggressive IIRC then it can be considered to be threatening.
  - whenchamenia 7y ago
    I am told my stature alone is 'threatening' and 'agressive'. My freedon to express myself without fear of imprisonment is affected in many situations. I find this verbage frightening when written in law without very clear and unambigious definitions.
7y ago

YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago

Is there another source for this? I don't even want to visit the Mail's website, let alone read whatever misrepresentation of what actually transpired that they have put down in their article.

pbhjpbhj 7y ago
See my comment, it was on BBC Click a few days ago.
richrichardsson 7y ago
As someone also not interested in giving the Daily Fail/Heil any traffic what-so-ever, I found this : https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/facial-recognition-cameras-technology-london-trial-met-police-face-cover-man-fined-a8756936.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/facial-recogniti...
- YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago
  Cheers.
benj111 7y ago
I always find I slightly unsettling when the Mail gets frothy mouthed about the same things as Hacker News. Don't want to get stuck in that news bubble though....
Wildgoose 7y ago
It includes video and is also available on the Daily Mirror website.

pbhjpbhj 7y ago

This was on BBC Click, which is on YouTube (for me, I'm in UK though). A good programme overall. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KqFyBpcbH9A https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KqFyBpcbH9A They give stats and details. It may not be the same incident as the OP, but it sounds broadly similar and the programme fleshes out the general situation well. Edit: Actually it is the same guy. The issue and provision of the fine, etc., it's on the show.

pif 7y ago

I personally don't see any issue with this. If you want absolute privacy, than stay at home. If you want absolute freedom, than go live somewhere where nobody else lives. Society runs on compromises: your freedon to swing your fist ends where my nose begins (and viceversa); your privacy ends where my safety is concerned (and viceversa).

seieste 7y ago
What’s your full name, phone number, and street address? If you want privacy, then don’t post online.
- wallace_f 7y ago
  He doesn't even have an Online Commenting License. A hefty fine under the Against Hate Speech Act of 2022.
WilliamEdward 7y ago
To add to this, there hasn't been any expectation of privacy beyond a reasonable amount out in public, in most places, for the longest time. Whether you think this is morally correct or not, it has been the norm for quite some time so this can't suddenly be surprising.
Zak 7y ago
Even if I accept your premise that privacy from facial recognition in public is to your safety as swinging my fist at your nose is to your right to not be assaulted (I don't), I don't think the police in the UK have done a good job justifying the benefits of using facial recognition this way. How much safety benefit does it actually produce?
- pif 7y ago
  The main point for me is that policemen made it really clear that, once public procedures and policies have been defined by a legitimate government, unless those policies infringe internationally recognized human rights, it's not up to the single citizen to challenge them! If you don't agree with them, democracies give you the means to start a public discussion. But, in the meanwhile, you comply. That is civilization! Do you know that idiocy of sovereign citizens? Well, London police demontrated that none of that bullshit will be tolerated. And, while I personally dislike being continuosly filmed, I think that London police has just made London a better place to live. London city is not the wild west.

stunt 7y ago

Well said that we are the last free generation. It so weird how much of our freedom and privacy we are giving away. People used to fight for these stuff. And then you would think how far this can go in near future if this is just the beginning. After all, all these fear and mixed feelings about security and conflicts are caused by a long chain of reactions and consequences of bad decisions governments are making themselves around the world. And it is sad that normal people end up losing their privacy more than responsible ones do. It requires a fundamental strategy change that is not going to happen in reality. I wonder what kind of destructive side effects it will have for the future generations specially to the culture.

deleted 7y ago

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marcod 7y ago

Another report https://metro.co.uk/2019/05/16/moment-man-fined-90-hiding-face-police-facial-recognition-cameras-9571463/ https://metro.co.uk/2019/05/16/moment-man-fined-90-hiding-fa... It's a little bit like saying "If she doesn't want to be tossed into the water she must be a witch!"

maxhedrome 7y ago

Might was well change their name to Meh Britain